A problem child, Cthulhu, and the most adorable dead gold digger the world has ever seen.
Perhaps you've read about this. Once again I'm a bit late to the party, but it's my forte. Don't judge me.
The story in question, about a group of teens beating a homeless man to death, spreading feces on the man's corpse and eventually equating the whole thing to a sport killing that felt "Just like a video game," has already been done to death by most major news outlets and websites. Penny Arcade's Gabe shared his opinion on the whole thing not too long ago. He related his opinion as much as you would expect him to, which is, he was a major dick towards the parents of the kids that did this.
Gabe recently got a letter from the stepmother of one of the kids involved in the Milwaukee case. Gabe posted this letter on the site's main page a while back and you can view it here. It's the second post entitled, "A rare opportunity." I actually missed this when it was first posted on the site and was directed towards it by word of mouth. The letter is very informative, not just of the case in Milwaukee, but about many similiar cases where video games are used as scapegoats for violence.
It's usually a knee jerk reaction by most people to lay all blame on the parents in cases like this, and this woman's letter does a lot to eliminate those accusations. While the parents' influence is no doubt a factor, the letter basically illustrates this important fact: some kids are so f***ed up that no amount of great parenting, strict or lax in discipline, could turn these kids around.
Gabe makes a good point in his post though. Most major news outlets would never dig deep enough to get this side of the story. Maybe they're a little busy crowding around the lifeless corpse of Anna Nicole Smith. Because she died recently. And the whole world is pretending this is tragic somehow. And this whore's death gets more press coverage than Bush's presidential address. And American journalism is still viewed as a noble profession for some reason. So it goes.
In other news, you guys have got to check out Cthulhu Nation. It's a free MMO. Playable on your web browser. Set in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. And it kicks a lot of ass. Did I mention free? Did I mention Lovecraft? Just checking ...